CH 3

Sally?

Saaaallly?

Sally can you hear me?

Oh good you're awake!

Sally stop yelling at me. You only have a few cracks covering your body. It’s not like you shattered. So stop whining.

Ok ok I was reckless. Sheesh.

I know you're not glowing Sally. But I think that I’ve got a handle on the process now so you shouldn't worry about it the next time.

You don’t want a next time?

I promise you’ll glow this time. And you’ll only lose a little bit of your outer shell.

Sally whether you want it or not I promised to make you glow. So I’m going to do it whether you like it or not.

I am not trying to get you killed. I’m trying to fulfill the deal we had.

Don’t call the deal off. That will just make me feel like I got something for free. And there's not like there is anything else I can really do for you.

Please Sally give me one more chance I promise it will work.

Oh thank you Sally. Thank you thank you thank you.

Ok so let’s evaluate what I did wrong last time.

First I gathered a bit of mana. Then I willed it out of myself and towards Sally. Next I forced my mana into sally telling it to make her glow. And then she did…. for 0.3 seconds. She passed out after glowing. And that's when she started to crack and shake. At first they were small but they kept growing and parts of Sally fell off of her. I pulled as much mana as I could out of Sally as fast as I could until I pulled all the mana I had given her back out.

But that didn’t stop it. The cracks got deeper and longer. When she shook dust flew off of her. As time passed her shaking slowed and so did her cracks. That is until the world decided to shake as well. It was the worst shaking that had ever happened. Petter told use that he had caught lots of others during the quake. He even moved deeper into our little hole.

But because of the world shake Sally sped up again. And this time she wasn’t slowing down. It seemed like the shaking had caused her to start disintegrating in larger chunks. If she was any smaller she would already be a pile rock dust.

I was afraid that if I didn’t do anything she would be gone forever. So I did the only thing I could think of.

I used my mana.

Even against my better judgment I knew it was the only way to save Sally. I know it caused the initial problem but I couldn’t do that to her.

So I gathered my mana and focused it together. Giving it my will of collecting the dust she had shed and encasing her in it until she stopped moving. Once I had a clear idea of what I wanted it to do I sent it out of me and let it do as my will had desired it to do.

And then it began.

The mana flowed out of me. It twisted and twirled around picking up her dust and pulling it towards Sally. Layer upon layer began to encase Sally restraining her. As the dust gathered it began to compress together forming sheets of rock to hold her in place. Slowly but surely she began to slow down. And once she came to a complete stop the dust surrounding her fell away revealing a new stone in its place. She had become a Light aqua blue color with her core being a darker blue. But she was still scared from all the cracks that were covering her surface.

Now Sally was very different from everyone else in color, personality, and shape. I may be responsible for two of those things I’ll admit. But I can’t take all the blame, right?

Well apparently I can and am supposed to, according to everyone else.

And we had quite a long time to talk it through since she didn’t wake up for a long time after the whole ordeal. I mean a really, really long time.

Which was a good thing since I needed to refill my mana reserves. It’s weird how to feel empty. I mean it’s weird to feel in general but I especially don’t like the feeling of being empty. So I worked on gathering my mana to ease the empty feeling away. I just spun it around inside myself and it slowly produced more mana until I became full again.

Then Sally woke up. And man can I tell you she was not happy. She yelled and screamed like crazy. I could only sit there and shake in fear at her rage. And had she had any power herself I’m pretty sure I would be dead and this cave would be much larger than it is now.

But after the others calmed her down I was able to talk to her and explain myself. Well at least I tried to explain myself but, well let’s just say I wasn’t received well.

And that's how we got to where we’re at now.

No Sally I didn’t forget about trying to make you glow.

I’m just double checking so that I do it right. So calm down Sally.

Now let’s begin. I’ll gather my mana into a condensed chunk. Then I’ll impart my will onto this chunk of mana. I want to fill the creaks that cover Sally first and then with the remaining mana I’ll trap it inside of her core which will make her glow. To do this I will be giving her mana with no will other than to move from one vessel to another. This should cause Sally to glow without her having to worry about becoming dust.

Ok Sally, are you ready?

Here we go.

The mana begins to gathers onto the surface of my body. Slowly it moves onto a single face of my body consolidating the magical power I’m about to use. It starts to spin and form a spire in the direction of Sally. It gets longer and thinner as the seconds pass. Until there is only a thin screw of mana directed at Sally. It starts to spin faster and unravel into multiple tendrils of mana. Once it gets to the speed that the tendrils start to blur together they break off of my body and fly to Sally’s. They spin and bend as if they were serpents. Some drill groves into the ground gathering stone. They get closer and closer to Sally converging on her. She’s screaming at me again, by the way.

Then they make contact. The tendrils that had made grooves in the stone reached her first. They filled her cracks with new rock chunks that fit almost perfectly into their spaces. Then a few of the other tendrils ran across her surface fusing all her pieces back together making her whole again. The last of the tendrils then went towards her and disintegrated into a more gaseous state that swirled around her as they slowly were absorbed by Sally.

Then the room whet still.

But that was only a small reprieve. Then the world started to shake again. As it did Sally began to glow in a cyan light. But the quake kept getting worse and worse as time went by. It almost seemed like something was getting closer. It’s so bad that I’m afraid Petter will fall on us all any minute now.

And that's when the walls started to crack.

Now of all the thing that have happened in my life this is the most terrifying of them all. The walls have never moved or broken in previous quakes. Dust might be shaken off of the walls of the cave but the walls have never truly broken. Not even under Petter’s weight. But now they’re cracking apart.

Then the wall started to bulge out towards us. The cracks grew bigger, connecting to one another creating a massive web all over the bulging wall. That is until it came to an abrupt stop.

I knew it was too soon to be over so I began to gather my mana. I imparted my will on it to reinforce the wall with the little mana I had left after healing Sally. It gushed out of me towards the wall. I only had enough mana to put up a single layer of condensed mana, which barely covered the bulge on the wall. I hope that this will be enough to hold it back during the next quake.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

BOOOOM!

Attention domain is being invaded